The British Journal of Photography, the world’s longes-running photography magazine is now available for free as a quarterly iPad app, giving its readers the highlight features of its print editions, but with added features that can only come in digital form, namely multimedia and video content, including a moving image cover.

The magazine says in a press release that the app it incorporates “unrivalled coverage of the emerging HD-DSLR video market, bringing together the best from stills photography and motion technology.”

Up-to-the-minute live news from BJP-Online is also accessible through the iPad app.

You’ve heard about the BLUR magazine. If you have not, here’s your chance to hear from them. BLUR is a creative photography magazine, an online photography publication dedicated to photography as an art. The short clip below provides a snapshot of the contents of Issue No 23.

I wonder how was Nikki Sixx’s lecture on Photography at the Annenberg Space for Photography in LA, half way around the globe from where I am, turned out. What had he said about the craft and what motivates him to shoot pictures the way he shoots them?

However, this series of six videos here may shed an insight into the Motley Crue bassist’s photography intuitions. The videos here document behind-the-scene stories in the making of Sixx’s book “This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx” which Amazon says, “is part photo, part journal—but all Nikki Sixx.” And yes, like what the title suggested, be prepared to get hurt — in more ways than one — upon seeing the photographs because they depict so much layers of emotions, so steep in symbolism, so powerfully evoked by the way he chooses his subjects.

By the way he shoots mostly with Nikon, Leica and Hasselblad digital as well as Diana and Fuji film cameras. He also has a 19th-century camera that uses the ancient wet plate process.

There’s an exclusive gallery of Sixx’s photos over at Rolling Stone. He has also begun to upload his photographs on Flickr and Tumblr.

Nikki Sixx’s favourite camera is a Leica M9, calling it sexual and describing it as his other girlfriend; but he also shoots with an iPhone. Darn, he also uses the Lensbaby!

One-hundred-and-sixty-five of photojournalist Steve McCurry’s most memorable and evocative photographs are being showcased in a large format limited book, titled “Steve McCurry: The Iconic Photographs.” McCurry, as we all know, is the guy who shot the photo of an Afghan girl with haunting green eyes, arguably one of the most iconic portraits of the 20th century.

The book is available at Amazon at US$248.85 or at its publisher Phaidon Press.

Via PhotographyBlog.

I recently came across Blur magazine whose mission is “to promote and ‘celebrate’ artistic photography and to ensure coverage of all photographers, professional and amateur alike, who capture motifs that intrigue them in fascinating, innovative and ‘fresh’ ways.”

I must say I’m inspired by them. I think you would be similarly inspired too. Blur can be downloaded for free (in PDF format).

Ever wonder what does it like to be the US President’s photographer? I mean, what would be the cameras used? What kind of lens, how many cameras he or she carries at a time and so on.

Or do they need to always stay within the “focal distance” or how big is the team of photographers, what it takes to be the president’s photographer, do they ever use Pentax? And a number of other curiosities.

The video below provides a peek into the live of president’s photographer, Pete Souza. It’s a trailer to a National Geographic documentary which premiered last month. There is also a book titled “The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office” which — according to the description on Amazon — tells “the intimate story of the men and women who are both visual historians and key links between the public and the Presidents.”

See some of the pictures here: The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office.

Issue number 34 of the free-to-download PhotographyBB magazine is now available, featuring numerous topics including a tutorial on high speed flash photography, how to build a web photo gallery, understanding “Layers” in Photoshop and an interview with photographer David Haynes.

PhotographyBB

You can download your copy in PDF format here [registration required]

I was browsing through the Internet recently when I discovered a link pointing to the Mail Online website, about the recent publication of a book, Microcosmos: Discovering The World Through Microscopic Images From 20 X to Over 22 Million X Magnification, with the picture of a wood ant holding a microchip featured on the front cover.

Cosmic universe

The ant in the picture was magnified 22 times. The book depicts spectacular microscopic images of everyday objects such as household dusts, shot using the latest microphotography technologies.

There are 205 full-color photographs that were taken using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), allowing readers a peek into the tiny universe never before seen with the naked eyes. Subjects include microorganisms, botany, the human body, zoology, minerals and technology. A write-up on the book over at Amazon mentions that “every photograph is accompanied by an informative caption that describes the image, how it was captured and the number of magnifications.”

Support this blog, buy the book at Amazon using this link.

The latest edition of PhotographyBB, the free monthly photography magazine, is now available for download. It’s the 32nd issue, and as usual, provides useful insight into the world of photography.

Among the topics discussed in the latest edition are lighting techniques for portraiture to produce stunning images and harnessing the power of YouTube as the social network for photographers.

Then there is also a discussion on product photography, my favourite subject because it often deals with shooting products up close. Titled “How to Shoot Product Photography Using A Single Light Source”, the article is enlightening, and accompanied by stunning still life photographs.

Two Photoshop tutorials are also available, which deal with levels and colour adjustment, and how to create “bubble frame” effect. Download your copy here (in PDF).

Aerial photography and medium format cameras. What a potent combination that is. Hasselblad Masters Awards Winner 2001 Bernhard Edmaier has published 200 of his most stunning photographs of volcanoes and volcanic landscapes taken with Hasselblad analog and digital medium format cameras over a period of 10 years.

Titled “Earth On Fire: How Volcanoes Shape Our Planet“, the book contains his most spectacular photographs of volcanic activities in their powerful details.

If Edmaier provides the picture, geologist and co-author Angelika Jung-Hüttl provides the write-ups, explaining the phenomena seen in the pictures.

Hasselblad says, “All of the images in ‘Earth on Fire’ – which were taken over a period of ten years – were photographed with Hasselblad analog and digital cameras.”

“Edmaier personally digitized the analog shots using a Hasselblad Imacon Flextight 949 scanner.”